A critical 'post' to critical realism

The aim of this paper is to initiate a dialogue between critical realism (CR) and what is termed a 'post'ist perspective'. This amalgamated perspective is composed of relatively recent transdisciplinary theoretical approaches such as poststructuralism, deconstruction, feminism and postcolonial theory. Such a conversation between CR and post'isms within economics has not been attempted before. I shall argue that this uncommon methodological exchange is worth pursuing, since it allows us to raise important new questions. After the initial stage-setting, the dialogue proceeds in two parts. In the first part, aspects of CR are evaluated using post'ist insights. In the second part, certain underconsidered theoretical domains in CR are highlighted. I conclude by sketching the outline of a possible non-universalist and strategically essentialist way of considering knowledge-as a Contextual Social Political Economy praxis.